Weber: Piano Concertos

Throughout his youth, his father, Franz Anton, relentlessly moved the family between Hamburg, Salzburg, Freiberg, Augsburg and Vienna. Consequently he studied with many teachers-his father, Johann Peter Heuschkel, Michael Haydn, Giovanni Valesi, Johann Nepomuk Kalcher, and Georg Joseph Vogler-under whose supervision he composed four operas, none of which survive complete.
He had a modest output of non-operatic music, which includes two symphonies; a viola concerto; bassoon concerti; piano pieces such as Konzertstück in F minor and Invitation to the Dance; and many pieces that featured the clarinet, usually written for the virtuoso clarinetist Heinrich Baermann. His mature operas-Silvana (1810), Abu Hassan (1811), Der Freischütz (1821), Die drei Pintos (comp. 1820-21), Euryanthe (1823), Oberon (1826)-had a major impact on subsequent German composers including Marschner, Meyerbeer, and Wagner; his compositions for piano influenced those of Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt. His best known work, Der Freischütz, remains among the most significant German operas.